CALAMITY HOWLER/A.V.
Krebs

'The Fun Is In the
Fight'

To those of us who knew John O'Connor his
humor, intelligence, and dedication to the cause of a safe
environment, the family farm movement and progressive urban populism
will be a legacy we shall not soon forget. His death at age 46 of a
heart attack on Nov. 30 while playing basketball at the Cambridge,
Mass., YMCA will be deeply mourned by many activists.

"John was a great man, and the world is a
better place because of his compassion, great love, and unyielding
drive to help other people," his wife, Carolyn Mugar O'Connor,
executive director of Farm Aid, told the Boston Globe's Tom
Long.

As a community organizer, environment
activist, developer, author and a recent candidate for Massachusetts
Eighth Congressional District John's hallmarks as a tough competitor,
but warm and generous man with a zest for life, were probably best
summarized by the motto he kept over his desk: "The fun is in the
fight."

"Every single person John worked with --
from the president of Ireland to the kids he helped on the streets
and in the schools back home -- knew that his passion was to leave
the world a better place than he found it," Jim Braude, a former
Cambridge city councilor and manager of his congressional campaign,
told Long, "in that he clearly succeeded."

Harriet Barlow, a long-time friend and
social activist remembers that O'Connor "was never cynical about his
motives or his goals. He understood the real harm caused by toxics
and the real threat posed by a non-renewable energy system. The
structural changes he sought all addressed underlying causes, not
just symptoms. What is a hero? It's someone who stands up and carries
on with a commitment to the people who need him the most," Barlow
stresses. "That was always the way I saw Johnny. He wasn't trapped by
a single issue. He embraced a politics which was as big as his own
heart, which was Irish after all."

Farm Aid's Program Director Ted Quaday
recalls "the staff at Farm Aid universally regarded John as a great
friend. His enthusiasm for life and his dedication to environmental,
consumer and family farm causes were infectious. During his regular
visits to the Farm Aid office he always brought with him humorous
insight into the politics of the day and the circumstances under
which we all struggle. We often sought him out for advice on farm and
political issues, and his contributions to our work were always
valuable as we moved forward."

In paying tribute to John, Sen. Edward
Kennedy (D-Mass.) noted that "John O'Connor's zest for life and
boundless energy were apparent from the moment you first met him, and
those extraordinary qualities continued to amaze even those who knew
him best and longest. His undeniable charisma helped win an enormous
circle of friends. But his life was always about causes larger than
himself. He credited his passion for social justice to the example of
his parents, Katherine and George, to the Catholic faith and training
he felt so deeply, and to his many inspiring teachers, especially at
Clark University in Worcester, his alma mater."

After graduating from Clark University,
O'Connor joined Volunteers In Service to America, a government-funded
organization dedicated to ending rural and urban poverty, where he
helped organize a low-income Worcester neighborhood, knocking on the
doors of the three deckers of Grafton Hill in a successful campaign
to end arson-for-profit in that neighborhood, a pattern he identified
through disciplined research. The fire station built in response to
that campaign remains a testament to John's first venture into
grassroots organizing.

In college in the late 1970s, O'Connor
organized fellow students to volunteer at the Mustard Seed, a
Catholic Worker collective in Worcester dedicated to feeding the poor
and homeless.

In the next three decades he helped organize
labor unions in the 1970s, founded the National Toxics Campaign in
1983, a grass-roots movement which lobbied for passage of the
Superfund Cleanup Law, and fought against deregulation of Bay State
utilities in the 1990s.

As Kennedy pointed out in his Senate tribute
"the combination of community organizing and strategic research led
him to understand that the environment was also an urban issue,
affecting the quality of life in low income neighborhoods as surely
as in the great outdoors. He began this new work by organizing
citizens to resist an ill-conceived landfill proposal and to
negotiate with local factory owners to reduce emissions."

In 1991, he founded Greenworks, a company
that helps "incubate" environmental start-up companies while
assisting them in financial backing. It was Gravestar, where he
served as the chairman of the company, that funded a $13 million,
environmentally friendly overhaul of Porter Square. A trustee of
Clark University, O'Connor also was a director of the Irish Famine
Memorial Committee. Having authored two books on the environment,
Getting the Lead Out and Who Owns the Sun?, he was
working on a book on farm and food policy.

As first and foremost a community organizer
John took on a wide range of issues with great dedication and
effectiveness. He worked with scientists to document health concerns
for veterans of the Gulf War. He made the case for environmental
cleanup programs from Boston Harbor to the Rio Grande. He argued
against the misuse of chemical poisons and other chemicals in
agriculture. He was a strong believer in the importance of organized
labor, and he fought alongside union members for strict protections
for health and safety in the workplace.

As an American of Irish heritage, he led the
1997 drive to create the first permanent US memorial to the victims
of the Irish Famine on Cambridge Common. To him, ethnic background
and culture were intended to enrich the world, not divide it. He was
proud to be known as an "ABC" -- an Armenian-by-Choice -- after his
marriage to Carolyn Mugar, an outstanding leader and activist in the
Armenian community. John enthusiastically joined her to make his own
impressive contributions to that community.

In addition to his environmental and social
activism John's personal life was also one based on
commitment.

Doug Kysar of Ithaca, N.Y., recalls in a
note to John's wife Carolyn how his wife Vicki brought home a lot of
stories about people that she met through Farm Aid. "But one story
that Vicki brought home from Farm Aid has always stuck in my mind,
now more than ever. One day she came home to tell me that she'd met
your husband. When I asked her to describe him, Vicki responded --
immediately -- that she had never met a man who more clearly loved
and cherished his life-partner than John O'Connor. This was an
adoration and a respect that was so deep it permeated John's life,
visible within five minutes of meeting him. It is a tragedy that this
type of love is so rare in the world, and even more of a tragedy that
it has been cut short when it does exist."

For John's family, friends and colleagues
Senator Kennedy's moving Senate tribute's last words ring oh so very
true. "We in Massachusetts have lost one of our state's most active
and effective champions of working families, consumers, and the
environment. John left us much too soon. I mourn his loss, and I
extend my deepest sympathies to his wife, Carolyn Mugar, his
daughter, Chloe, his parents, his brothers and his sister, his nieces
and nephews, and his many godchildren. In his memory, we pledge to
recommit ourselves to the many great causes in which John did so much
to lead the way."